Utopia Management
Reviews and Complaints

Utopia has been managing my property in Hayward for a few years as a result of my original manager,Ken Birchfield,retiring. I have received VERY POOR service from Kelly Maloney. A tenant was allowed to live in one of my units for a year without paying, Another tenant moved out and left the place destroyed. I have received no rent for months from anyone and was unable to find out what the damage and repairs were

I called Kelly Maloney 12 times and she would never return my calls

I had no choice but find a new manager but she is making the transition difficult

I am very disappointed in Utopia management

There are new neighbors on 1482 167th Ave San Leandro location. Recently their habits are starting to become a problem. Every evening there tends to be cigarette smoking that lingers in the house I’m living in, I have to close my windows and my doors so I won’t have to smell the smoke, I have small children and it’s very unhealthy for them to be breathing in the smoke. It tends to stay in the house. I did read over your policy about smoking, which states there shouldn’t be no smoking.

4.12 NO-SMOKING

Smoking is absolutely prohibited at or about the Property, including but not limited to cigarettes, cigars, pipes, and other tobacco products. Tenant agrees to enforce the no-smoking policy with all persons under Tenants control, including but not limited to, all occupants, guests, and invitees.

It seems to me the policy is not being taken into consideration. I would appreciate if the company handles this situation ASAP.

Thank You.

This has to be the most belligirent, unethical business in San Diego. Stay as far away as you can. Hired Utopia to manage our home and at the very first open house (scheduled by Utopia) the Utopia Rep does not show up, however, we have 5 or 6 prospective tenants that do. Now I am left to do Utopia's job for them by showing the home to the interested parties. Finally a Utopia Rep shows up but, it's not the Rep that we had been working with. So, needless to say she's late, unprepared and empty handed, the epitome of "UNPROFESSIONAL". She was unfamiliar with the home so she could not guide the prospective tenants through it and could not answer any of their questions. People were prepared to fill out applications after viewing the home but, the Utopia Rep failed to bring any with her, and to further solidify that this was the absolute worse, most inept company...she did not posess a single business card to distribute. This came to my attention after several of the people viewing the home asked me for my contact details because the Utopia Rep had none. Within two days I called Utopia and told them I was terminating service and they said fine but, I would have to pay them half of the monthly rent advertised price ($1500). As I explained of the unsatisfactory service and the fact that no tenant had been approved, that amount was unreasonable. Answer from Utopia was "we don't care what you think, pay us the $1500, and in the mean time we are going to continue to try and get a tenent for you, and if we find a tenent and approve them (without my consent) it wiil now cost you one months rental fee plus some other superfulous fee for a total of $3500 to terminate services with us. "OUTRAGES" This peolpe should be put out of business or locked-up, or both!

Utopia Management is more concerned with gaining income then doing a good job. I have heard this before from others but I decided to give them a chance. BIG mistake.
I hired them to rent out my condo; they had over 15 days left in that month to rent out a condo in a prime location. Condo was tenant ready yet I found out that Utopia didn’t do anything for the first 15 days. It wasn’t even placed on the Craigslist or anywhere for the matter. I called to ask why? I was informed that they have been very busy lately. That was an Interesting response to say the least...as I lose more money due to their poor work ethic.
The condo that is in a prime location and was placed on their web site, I was charge $50 for this. Why? Who knows...greed? I asked them to place it in the local paper to make move faster now that they wasted the first 15 days.
They assured me they would do just that. It was never placed in the paper and they found no renters for the next month to rent out my condo.
Of course, I called up to ask why it wasn’t rented out already. It is a prime location with a ton of interest in that area. Once again, I was informed that they have been busy lately so they only show the condo on Fridays of each week. This really pissed me off as I am paying them basically to do nothing. They show the condo only four times a month, this is ridiculous and shows poor attitude. Needless to say I fired them but had to let them retain the condo for another 30 days after they are fired. They refuse to mail back my keys until the very day after the 30 days had passed. I called to speak to the head manager and she told me that basically it was between me and whomever Utopia assigned to me (not her problem). Nice attitude! The girl they assigned to me never responded to my phone calls or emails.
To summarize the whole situation they had possession of my condo for over 75 days and could not rent out, they charged me for use of their web site but never placed it in the paper as previously agreed.
Once I gave my condo to another property management company it was rented within 10 days. The rental was always at a decent price in a desirable area and it never had issues renting out until I gave it to a company who didn't care at all.
Utopia is not a good property management company at all!
DO NOT USE THEM!

Save yourself before you rent from this property management company. Sandra, a representative, advertised a 3 bedroom (+ gardener included) home on Craigslist. I met her to look through the home and only saw 2 bedrooms. I asked here where the 3rd bedroom was and she showed me to a large room connected to the kitchen area in the back of the house. She kept up a good conversation and even proceeded to tell me about her boyfriend infecting her with genital warts. After applying, I was told to meet her back at the office. Once there she gave me a list of rules and told me to just sign the last page and I could sign the lease the day of move in. I did and never heard from her again. Well she called me once to tell me I was accepted. After her call, my employer called me to let me know they had just received my request for employment verification. I was surprised I was accepted before she completed the checks. Time came for me to move in and I still could not get through to her. I finally went to the office on the move in date to sign the lease and happened to bump into her on her way out of the office. She was too busy to sit with me. She found my file and said, "Oh you already signed the lease." I asked when and she said the day she had me sign the back page. I then had to sit in the office, waiting for them to go pick up keys to the property from some unknown location, until an hour before closing. I was horrified watching four different clients come and go with complaints. One client had been sitting there since 9 am waiting for his keys and it was 4pm. Finally I got the keys. I rushed to the property having a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. I looked around the house and everything seemed ok although none of the locks had been changed. I noticed a new door had been added to the 3rd bedroom off the kitchen. I opened it by the door handle but there was no key to lock double-key sided deadbolt. It was a little cold so I went into the back bedroom to close the windows. All the blinds were closed so I opened them to close the windows and to my surprise there were no windows. She advertised the property on Craigslist as a 3 bedroom and on the company website I found out it was listed as a 2 bedroom + a bonus room. It was not a "room" at all but a porch with screens. Now I'm stuck in a lease from this horrible company and can't sleep in my "bedroom"/sunroom. I don't know what will happen when winter comes but I did purchase a firearm. And to top it off, the owners/gardener or friends of the owners live directly across the street. They walked over my mailbox key and pop up whenever they want. My first day home I pulled into the driveway to all their kids in the yard, hanging off the fence and had to step over cups of drinks all over the front porch while they were "gardening". A nightmare!